Suddenly 80 - "age suit" shows what it's like to be old

By Sophia Weimer Jan 5, 2012, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - What is it like to an elderly person? What happens when your body gradually loses its strength and mobility? A special suit developed by a German company is helping medical students and designers to answer those questions.

Sounds become muffled when wearing the 'Age Man' or 'Age Explorer' suit and your view is limited like you are wearing horse blinkers. Bending down to pick something off the ground is impossible.

The suit is equipped with weights at the joints and a helmet with a yellow translucent face-screen, special headphones and gloves that restrict hand movements. A pair of trousers and a jacket that are as heavy as lead give the overall impression of a rather portly robot.

The suit has been in use at Berlin's Evangelisches Geriatriezentrum clinic for elderly patients for a while now. Medical students from Berlin's Charite Hospital are trained in geriatric care at the clinic.

'The students get a better understanding of what it's like to be old. Practical experience like this can be more effective that reading about it in a book,' says Rahel Eckardt, a senior physician for geriatric medicine at the clinic.

Elderly people need more patience, more understanding and more sympathy. If you try and to take some coins from your purse or wallet while wearing the suit's gloves, you will never complain about a senior citizen taking a long time to pay at a supermarket till again.

The first generation of the suit was designed by the Saarbruecken-based Meyer-Hentschel Institut in 1995. The latest model came on the market in 2008.

'We specialise in the areas of medical training, geriatric care and transport services,' says Gundolf Meyer-Hentschel. Berlin's public transport company has trained its bus drivers and service personnel using the suit, for example.

The suit is also used to design cars that fulfill the needs of the elderly.

'Scientists and engineers can use the suit to get an idea of what it's like to be old and to design car interiors and controls to better suit their needs,' says Eckardt.

Volker Schmidt from the Deutscher Senioren Ring, an organisation that promotes the health and welfare of the elderly in Germany, says the suit provides the wearer with the feeling of what it can be like to be old but that there's more to being elderly than just having limited movement.

'There are 55-year-olds who have bad eyesight while there are 90-year-olds with eyes like a hawk,' he says.

The suit is designed to show how elderly people lose physical abilities rather than to simulate a specific age.

'Loss of muscle strength is a big problem for many elderly people,' says Eckardt. A fall can greatly reduce a senior citizen's independence and many limit their movements in order to avoid having an accident.

The suit restricts the wearer's sense of perception: blue and green are difficult to discern and a conversation is only possible when directly facing the other person. Sounds from the sides or from the rear are almost inaudible and are difficult to place.

When the suit is packed back in its box after an hour your body feels as light as a feather again.